Episode: 1692
Title: HPR1692: Boulevard Brewing Company "Sample Twelve"
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1692/hpr1692.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 07:47:28

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This is HPR Episode 1692 entitled Boulevard Brewing Company, Sample 12, and is part of the series
5,150 Shades of Beer. It is hosted by 50 and 50 and is about 20 minutes long. The summary is
50 and 50 explores nature and cancass city brews while celebrating jukebox heroes.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by an honesthost.com. Get 15% discount on all shared
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at an honesthost.com. Howdy folks, this is 5150 for Hacker Public Radio. I know the title on
this episode says a beer review for the Boulevard Brewing Company, Sample 12 Package, and we're
going to do that. But I just wanted to digress for a minute and the reason I'm doing that I'm
thinking about doing a project. I did a little research and I found out what I thought was
fascinating information in the research. I just wanted to throw that out there just in case
I don't ever persevere and actually finish the project. But for right now it's not worth a stand
alone episode because as I said it's on my end it's an unfinished project. But recently nightwise
showed me a link to using a Raspberry Pi as a streaming music box much like a Sonos player
and link is there in the show notes. I look at some of the enclosures that people come up with
and saw a lot of transistor radios from the 40s and 50s and a lot of those little boxes are
just true works of art. But they don't seem to provide a lot of selection of controls. Then I
remembered seeing a 1950s jukebox wall box controller in a local antique shop. And I'm never sure
when I'm addressing our European friends what part of the American experience they're familiar with.
But in the 40s and 70s just about every American diner that had a jukebox it also had
at every booth and sometimes at tables there would be a remote console with a coin slot.
And usually you would have some sort of minuting system, uh,
cinecard tiles that were rotated by tabs at the bottom or knob at the top and each song would
have associated with it. A code made up of a letter and a number and then you dropped in required
currency usually on a court only quarter and you would key in your selection underneath. I said
usually one letter and one number. And of course that song would start playing on the jukebox
and in the later more advanced units you'd actually start playing on stereo speakers on the
wall box as well. Apparently that was a lot of Americans first introduction to stereo.
But as you can see from the eBay link in the show notes these wall boxes progressed from just
to say a dozen titles in the 1940s to far more complex systems. And by the 80s you had some
not very attractive units with digital readouts. But most of the earlier ones before the 80s they
were just these marvels of late art deco design in my opinion. And of course my parents were far
too frugal to let me drop coins in one of these pioneering marvels marvels of analog networking
back when we would take our vacations in the 70s. But thanks to a couple monitors who have tied
their panels into Raspberry Pi I can give you a general overview of how these units communicated
with the central jukebox via primitive serial protocols. First off if you have the expectation
of following in the show notes that I've included from Phil Lavin or Steve Devlin be prepared
to pay more for a wall box certified to be ready to connect and work with the same brand's jukebox.
Or you can you got there if you if you've got a seabird jukebox you can go on eBay and find a wall
box that's certified to be a hundred percent working order that you can that you can tie in.
And while all wall boxes seem to communicate by serial pulse unfortunately each company
employed a different scheme. Wall boxes of all conditions seems to start around $50 on eBay of
course that doesn't necessarily reflect the eventual selling price. But they can easily go into
the thousands. As I said all the wall boxes in my opinion are marvels of art deco design
and even if they have no other purpose they're non-functional and all they're there for us to
occupy your space and become a conversation piece. Interestingly interestingly to me right now in
eBay there's example of a wall box converted to be a waiterless ordering system for a diner in
other words in place of having stairway to heaven it would have had staked eggs for 95.
And there was a glue on plaque on the face unit that I don't identify this system as Toby
for totally ordered by yourself that just sounds so cool to me. So if I could find nothing
I well I could find nothing on the tech on Google's but I really hope that was successful because
that truly would have been a master hack. Okay first step most wall boxes were powered from
the jukebox not not from AC powered so you just can't plug them in to 120 volt to
alternating current. You're gonna likely need something like a 25 or 30 volt adapter you'll
have to research your model and brand of wall box to see what you need and that's what you get
once you get that connected if everything is working you should be able to drop in your quarter
punch in a letter number combo if you have one of those later years I mean the ones clear back
in the 40s some of them had a dial like one through 13 where you had a you had a scrolling selector
you know one through 20 something like that and if if nothing else I would say if you find one
affordable that looks it even if it's non functional if everything seems to be there those
early 40 ones are are just outstandingly beautiful units just to have something in your house okay
but if you've got one that more common later units you either have 10 letters or 20 letters
so usually be two or three rows while you on the bottom row zero through nine and then the top
row be the first 10 letters the alphabet and if there's a middle row it'll be the second 10
letters of the alphabet and so you'll flip through your tiles and finally find the song that you
want I mean if if it was still a jukebox and then you would say punch in like K9 and just like
radio buttons on your old car radio those those those two buttons would stay pressed and if you
had your quarter and I think there was probably another switch to you know confirm your selection
and you'd hear motor were and then those buttons would pop back out now what you wouldn't see in
the back because of those two buttons that you'd you'd selected there's just energized rotary
arm that goes around in a circle and it will produce a number of pulses based on the number contacts
that are connected you know based based on the keys that you selected and you know it's a
each just way explained it's it's a lot like a finger dialing a phone an old rotary phone but
each company used used a different protocol for what actually went out back to the jukebox
on the line what what kind of pulses that your selections would create in the case of Steve
Devlin's row amy there was a set of initial pulses for the number so in other words if the number
was five there you know what probably six pulses you know zero zero through five I think that
there was always an extra pulse he said and then and then there would be a gap and then for
since there were two rows of letters there was a more complex combination of how the pulses
would go out for the letters I leave that for you to read on his website now Phil Laven the other
gentleman I found and all all these sets of pulses were found through trial and error he found
that he had a similar inputs you know 20 letters 10 numbers but he found out that the Seabirds
communicated by using two based 20 numbers and of course they were you know their pulses to
represent the numbers so you'd have the least significant base 20 number first and then if you
were if if required if you're if you're high enough up in the selection there would be a pause
a pause and then a second set of pulses for a base 20 number so both these guys you don't have
to be really great electrical engineers I think to discover this I'm not sure I'm going to be able
to apply their research this this is why I want to get this out here now because I'm not sure
this is something I can duplicate now each gentleman used a different method to protect his pie
from an overvolt because I said these things were thrown out 25 30 volts and and you'll fry a pie
if anything coming in on the IO greater in 3.5 so devil used a 3.5 volt voltage regulator which
also had the advantage of making is making the pulses seem more square and then lab and he uses
an optical relay in words I once essentially doesn't really matter what volt comes in on the
input side it flashes a light and then there's a sensor on the others on the pie side that picks up
on the flashes converts them to electrical pulses and connects to the IO ports and both landis
both lavend and devil use their wall boxes control sono streaming players now my idea I want
I want something a little more flexibility in other words they they both have sub selection like
old rock and roll songs and play them through the sonos and my idea was maybe to use my selections
to play podcasts so if they're I'd have such you know maybe a streaming podcast and if
if it finds out there's no stream for that podcast it would pull the last unheard podcast
that I downloaded something like that and then maybe maybe attack if you've got 200 different
selections maybe maybe attach other other key combinations to various home automation processes
and right if I get a wall box with 40 40 IO pins on the raspberry pie I might be inclined to just
forget the whole serial communication system and rewire the wall box with a momentary switch under
each button and connect each of them to a different IO port on the pie so we'll all let you know
but so I did I didn't want to wait till I got this all done so I figured this is one of these
things even if I do do it it's going to it's going to take me a year to get to it and I just
thought I saw all this stuff that the research had been done to connect these wall boxes to a pie
and I and I said this is just too cool to wait so you'll see in the show notes I've got links to
Mr. Lavin and Mr. Devlin's tutorial pages along how they interfaced with the raspberry pie
okay now to the beer cast another episode of 50 Shades of Beer and as I said this one is
going to be over the Boulevard Brewing Company which is in Kansas City Missouri www.vulbar.com
and your selection is their sample 12 sampler pack you know it's a 12 pack sampler pack
and this is a unique marketing campaign for my favorite Kansas City Brewer so 12 pack contains
four varieties of beer two of which are established Boulevard offerings and the other two are bottled
with non gloss supposedly generic labels that appear to have been hand typed in other words
weird to believe we've been sold two prototype beers for our approval the 80 acre hoppy wheat beer
and the air quotes are mine and the graphics consists of an old farm all tractor telling a pick-up
trailer carrying a genetic genetic hopspud from this presentation one might expect an
oppressively hoppy beer fortunately for the hopped timid this is a rather satisfying
abulation in all your registers 20 IBUs I detected a stink citrus taste so I suspect citrus
or related or related hops but Boulevard is keeping the exact specs closer to the vast
than some other brewers the brewers description of the beer may be found here in the show notes
pours corn silk yellow with floss ahead but not a lot of lacing I'd like to say a biscuit
biscuit aroma but it smells more like just sort of damp week to me so I like this beer now first
of the generic label test beers we'll talk about is the oatmeal style it pours an opaque dark brown
with a very small light brown head that disappears quickly it has sort of a milk chocolate aroma
a thin mouthfeel and really when you when you're when you're swallowing it you don't really
get much taste it's sort of a chocolate aftertaste you know that that will continue in your mouth
for a long time but it's not like there's this chocolatey flavor washing over your tongue
in terms of locally brewed oatmeal stouts I'd really give the nod to the free state oatmeal
stout in brewed in Lawrence Kansas but I wouldn't turn down this brew for bassy if they decide to
continue it as it's not yet official they don't have a web page for it the second established
beer in the pack is the unfiltered wheat beer on the label there's a graphic of a farmer of gathering
wheat bundles to build shops surrounded by hot spines of course cloudy with the color of golden
wheat straw lots of persistent head that leaves an elacing slightly biscuit aroma distinctly
more citrusy than the 80 acre not much malt and just a little hops bitterness despite the name
you could safely drink this beer to the bottom without winding up with a mouthful of particulates
and then finally our second and last experimental beer mid coast IPA at 104 IBUs this is where all
the hops that you expected from the 80 acre went pours wheat straw gold thick white head that leaves
little lacing with a hoppy aroma even at 104 IBU it has a slight sweet taste and doesn't seem to
be one of those my hops can beat up your hop spears the label states the hoppiness the hoppiest
thing we have ever brewed pretty nervy for a bunch of midwesters I found it be a great complement
to the baked ham and spicy glaze that I had for dinner and I put a link to the recipe in the show
notes even though I improvised quite a bit on the glaze now right that's all I had but before
you leave I wanted to play the sounds of dusk that are recorded from my new home site tonight
I can think of no more elegant what argument that why living on the lake is better than living in town